A Failed Featured Image Controversy, Which one of you guys is faking the file history? Options

[carbuncle]

This image of Einstein receiving his American citizenship didn't make featured image status, but it did cause an interesting discussion. Make sure you expand the part that says "Discussion concerning CarolSpears's Oppose".

[cyofee]

At least for this thing we can blame the global Jewish conspiracy.

[Milton Roe]

This image of Einstein receiving his American citizenship didn't make featured image status, but it did cause an interesting discussion. Make sure you expand the part that says "Discussion concerning CarolSpears's Oppose".

Doofuses. I don't know who this Carol person is, but she's a perfect illustration of a type you run into on WP: "I haven't seen this picture before, and I would have if it existed, therefore there's something funny, and maybe fake about it." Holy crap. Narcissism again.

You can search on Google Image for "Einstein Citizenship" and pull this photo up in a number of venues. The stuff Behind Judge Foreman's head may be a piece of lacy cloth of some kind, as a wider angle shows. A curtain? It's possibly a paint re-touch, but you can see the corner of it below and it looks like a physical object. That said, the shadow in front of the judge's face looks like retouch, but it might be behind the head, too.

[imgx]http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/timeline/images/_cards/1932_172_card.jpg[/imgx]

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Wed 18th June 2008, 9:30pm

[gomi]

OK, I give. What does the nutcase Carol have against this image?

[dogbiscuit]

OK, I give. What does the nutcase Carol have against this image?

I think someone photoshopped out the horse.
[Edit:]Or is it: whenever you take a group photo there is always one idiot looking the wrong way?

[Rootology]

How did people just not completely disregard her complaints? This is just dumb. Its a great historical photo.

[Milton Roe]

How did people just not completely disregard her complaints? This is just dumb. Its a great historical photo.

Here's the one usually shown of him taking the oath, some of the same people visible.


Right afterwards he was to give a radio address, and the judge was nice enough to provide his upstairs chamber to be converted temporarily for a broadcast post for the occassion (this was the power of Einstein's fame by then). Einstein used the occassion to remind everybody that it was the duty of every citizen to criticize their government when it was doing something wrong. A radical idea in 1940!

Reminds me a bit of Linus Pauling, who was invited to the JFK Whitehouse a generation later, for a Nobelists' dinner, and spent a few hours outside the fence first, picketing the government on the issue of open-air nuclear testing. Then went in to eat dinner with the president.

You gotta love these guys. On Wikipedia I think both if them would have lasted about 3 weeks before being banned.

Milton

[Cla68]

I've nominated historical images for featured consideration before, and the ensuing discussions were sometimes surprisingly intense and pedantic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fea...astern_Solomons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fea...ougainville.jpg

I'm not sure why.

[taiwopanfob]

You can search on Google Image for "Einstein Citizenship" and pull this photo up in a number of venues. The stuff Behind Judge Foreman's head may be a piece of lacy cloth of some kind, as a wider angle shows. A curtain? It's possibly a paint re-touch, but you can see the corner of it below and it looks like a physical object.

You can download a 15MB TIFF by clicking on the thumbnail at:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/P...(ppmsca+05649))

It looks like a scan of the actual print held by the LOC. When you look at that there is no question whatsoever the weird thing behind the judge's head is in fact white-out of some kind. Why the photographer did that is a good question.

More seriously, though, the image at the Commons has been doctored to remove this whiteout. Compare:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Al...nship_NYWTS.jpg

Note that there is no hint in the caption that the image has been modified from its source at the LOC and the destination at the Commons. Not good!

That said, the shadow in front of the judge's face looks like retouch, but it might be behind the head, too.

Flash is the only source of illumination in this picture. Observe the sharp shadows on the papers in Einstein's hands, the dark background, and getting darker as you go further away. The specular reflections off eye glasses of a few people in the gloom have no other simple explanation.

The flash was position above and to the right of the optical axis, as can be seen by the shadows being cast down and to the left. This means that the strange dark area in front of the judge's face is the shadow of the judge himself, cast onto the people in the background.

Chances are excellent that this picture was taken with a Graflex Speed Graphic:

http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/

P.S. Oh cool! There is more than one at Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Citizen-Einstein.jpg

This one is unmolested, beyond some cropping.


This post has been edited by taiwopanfob: Thu 19th June 2008, 4:04am

[Viridae]

Interestingly - carol spears has been accused of violating copyright - the violatiosn then appeared on the main page as a DYK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...rs_on_Main_page

[Giggy]

It's stuff like this that makes me thing we'd be better off without featured pictures (and sounds, and to a lesser extent portals and topics).

[guy]

You gotta love these guys. On Wikipedia I think both if them would have lasted about 3 weeks before being banned.

They'd have been banned for CoI for editing articles they knew something about.

[thekohser]

I've nominated historical images for featured consideration before, and the ensuing discussions were sometimes surprisingly intense and pedantic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fea...astern_Solomons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fea...ougainville.jpg

I'm not sure why.

Ah, the Enterprise shot was shot down by my pal and Durova-supporter-to-the-end, ragesoss (IRL, "Sage Ross" at Yale University):

Oppose. Historicity alone is not enough to merit FP status; this image is too small, too grainy, and has too little context to adequately illustrate its subject. Yes, it is a powerful image of something that is rarely caught on film, but it falls well short of the typical standards we expect even from historically significant images. And while this may be a unique photograph, it does not depict a unique historical event (except in the sense that this particular ship was only hit once by this particular bomb).--ragesoss 20:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

What a party-pooper!

Greg

[thekohser]

Interestingly - carol spears has been accused of violating copyright - the violatiosn then appeared on the main page as a DYK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...rs_on_Main_page

Once Carol apologizes, the woman who is incapable of apology lifts the threat of a ban. How is that for irony?

an apology
It has been suggested to me that I apologize, and I am starting to agree with the suggestion.

I am sorry for the situation that exists here. Whatever I did to cause it, I will attempt to avoid in the future.

Also, I did not really mean it when I said that I wanted to see an example of how uncited articles are ignored and allowed to sit there until moldy. That was a bad joke that I am very sorry I made here.

Please accept this apology and thank you for all the efforts to protect the encyclopedia. -- carol (talk) 01:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Withdrawing the proposal to ban. Carol, I hope things work out. DurovaCharge! 06:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

[Milton Roe]

You can download a 15MB TIFF by clicking on the thumbnail at:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/P...(ppmsca+05649))

It looks like a scan of the actual print held by the LOC. When you look at that there is no question whatsoever the weird thing behind the judge's head is in fact white-out of some kind. Why the photographer did that is a good question.

More seriously, though, the image at the Commons has been doctored to remove this whiteout. Compare:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Al...nship_NYWTS.jpg

Note that there is no hint in the caption that the image has been modified from its source at the LOC and the destination at the Commons. Not good!

That said, the shadow in front of the judge's face looks like retouch, but it might be behind the head, too.

Flash is the only source of illumination in this picture. Observe the sharp shadows on the papers in Einstein's hands, the dark background, and getting darker as you go further away. The specular reflections off eye glasses of a few people in the gloom have no other simple explanation.

The flash was position above and to the right of the optical axis, as can be seen by the shadows being cast down and to the left. This means that the strange dark area in front of the judge's face is the shadow of the judge himself, cast onto the people in the background.

Chances are excellent that this picture was taken with a Graflex Speed Graphic:

http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/

P.S. Oh cool! There is more than one at Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Citizen-Einstein.jpg

This one is unmolested, beyond some cropping.

Very good! You're dead on, and I missed a bunch of stuff. The audience is indeed as you say lit only by the camera flash, which is close to the lens. Of course one of those disposable magnesium bulbs (remember them?), and this one, one of those giant bulbs that news photographers used in Graflexes. Yes, the flash is high and to the right of the lens (as seen by the photographer behind camera), as in the Graflex, and this shows up not just in shadows, but also as the position of the high-right-of center specular reflections in the eyeglass lenses of the nearer two audience people-- off the lens-glass you're seeing a direct MIRROR of the flash-assembly itself, curvature of the lenses themselves making little difference, so the round flash image comes back high-right of the center of the each eyeglass lens, opposite to shadows, which as you note are all slightly low-left. And yes, that's the judge's head-shadow on the audience to his head-low-left, with a bump which is probably his chin. Einstein's head shadow shows up as some dark to the image left of HIS (right) ear, again on his head image-low-left. Thanks!

Yes, I had noticed that one of the images on Google had been modified to black out the white-out! But I thought that was the because the white out was a thing. With better res, I see it's not. And golly, that it is white-out of the original. Probably to get somebody with a silly distracting expression or closed eyes or something, behind the judge. All this should be discussed on the COMMONS image comment, to save some other poor schlubs from having to figure it out again.

Thanks again for pointing out what should have been obvious to me.

M.
[imgx]http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/timeline/images/_cards/1932_172_card.jpg[/imgx]

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Thu 19th June 2008, 6:00pm